Sunday, July 31, 2011

[Comic title: Lanes; Alt text: Each quarter of the lanes from left to right correspond loosely to breast cancer stages one through four (at diagnosis).]

Interestingly, Randy is here accurately describing why merely avoiding XKCD isn't an option. Think of XKCD as a cancer, and the various friends and blogs that constantly inflict it upon you as individual cells. Even if you stop reading every single blog and block or cut off contact with every single friend who is constantly sharing XKCD, you still haven't won. Some new one will discover it or find one that they think is particularly awesome for some reason. They will inflict it on you. Every day is lived in the fear that one day some new person will demonstrate that they have absolutely no taste whatsoever.

The relapse is in many ways worse--while you are actively battling the cancer of XKCD you're emotionally prepared for its slings and arrows, but when you've been living clean for some weeks or months and it strikes it can be devastating. Suddenly all the happiness and joy you knew in your life is shattered when one of your so-called friends messages you out of the blue with those hated words:

"LOL HAVE YOU SEEN THIS???"

Posted by
Rob

277 comments:

With this comic xkcd demonstrates how far it has fallen. In the good old days, Randall would have used this as a way to explain that cancer is pretty cool because it gives you an excuse for hypochondria and annoying quirks like that are the best, then everybody would have said "GOOMHR I fear for my life every time I feel an internal twinge too!"

But no, now it's all negativity. Out with the ball pit, in with the heartache.

Okay, it is time I came clean, on the reason I deleted my blogs and disappeared from the face of the internets.

I had to travel back in time. Adopt a new persona, you know, I was getting tired of my old life. I'll do a few time travelly things, like kill Hitler and make it look like suicide, and witness the end of xkcd. Afterwards I'll settle for a spot 10 years in the past, and start anew.

I will still visit this blog, but under a different name. From then onwards you will know me as... Aquarians Love To Fuck.

If you're not sure if something you've done is wrong, imagine explaining it to your mother.

"Hey Mom, it's me. So I have this website about a comic on the internet I don't like, and I make fun of the writer every week. He made this one about his wife having cancer and - get this - I said HIS COMIC IS LIKE CANCER. Isn't that hilarious? Anyway, let me know how that biopsy goes. Love you!"

9:24 is right. This is war. Us vs. xkcd. Randall pulled the sympathy card to try and get us to back down, but war doesn't work that way. War only ends when one or both sides have been mercilessly obliterated. No quarter.

I'm putting it out there that Ravenzomg never came back, and every single post to date has been by Ann Apolis fulfilling some weird fantasy of his.

Except for the one Jon Levi made, because it has a picture and everything so clearly it's her they must be the same person. Thanks, blogger, for making the user identification process utterly infallible!

Newest comic is about how much the hacker group "anonymous" sucks without actually saying it. Randy doesn't want to get several annon's arrested for DDOSing him with LOIC (translates to: being completely retarded).

Why would a computer expert hear "took down the website" as "tore down a poster"? It does make sense as a metaphor, but then you read the alt-text and can only assume that computer experts are kinda stupid. I guess that's why Randall isn't one!

So...the mainstream media says a moderately complex statement, and normal "PEOPLE" only hear a simplified version of that? Is Randy suggesting that the media is smarter than the average person? In previous comics, he's gone out of his way to paint them as "HURR DURR WE NO UNDERSTAND TECHNOLOG HOW USE COMPUTUER"

I like the latest comic, though it might be a bit of an exaggeration. Also, randy's portrayal of media accuracy is unusually complimentary.

To clarify for people who don't really get the distinction, because some of you don't seem to:

Any large and powerful organization will generally make sure that its public website and its important databases are entirely separate. In fact, the US government has a network of private connections, circumventing having to use the public net for internal communication entirely. So even if you did hack into the CIA's website, you would have no chance of finding any sensitive data; it's just a site for public information on the organization, while the 'real' computers are undoubtedly guarded by some insane level of security.

In addition, taking a website down is different from hacking into it. Websites can be taken down simply by barraging them with bogus requests. In order to hack into a website, to gain access to the files on it, you'd need to find a flaw somewhere in its security, which often requires patience and skill (things the teenagers over at anonymous often lack).

So the "tearing down a poster" analogy seems pretty accurate. It's just a poster that billions of people can see, so it's a little more serious.

ThePirateKing, I'm pretty sure we all got it. Thanks for making us read all those words, though, it was a good opportunity for me to make out that reading a couple of paragraphs is some sort of major task.

It seemed like some commenters were a bit confused. I just wanted to clear the air, and make out that typing a couple of questionably accurate and unsourced paragraphs is some sort of major accomplishment.

Someone wise once said "people aren't dumber than you just because you think you're smarter than them". Who was that? Anyway. Yeah Randall once again separates himself from society by making out the average Joe to be some idiot who doesn't understand words.

I don't get it. And with "it" I mean the purpose of this.. ehm.. ranting blog(?) about XKCD. XKCD isn't good because it's funny, it's good because it touches on subjects from the p.o.v. of an engineer.

If you're into the whole science thing, it's mostly interesting, and slightly witty, but never actually funny. (try explosm if you want funny and don't mind crude jokes)

What I don't get, is why anyone would want to rant about XKCD not being funny "as a hobby". That doesn't strike me as a fun activity at all, so why do you bother keeping this blog?

(and srsly, if you really like ranting about stuff, that's fine, but it would be nice if you would rant about something more interesting)

Ah, I see. Everyone is butt-hurt and it makes for the lulz. Thanks for clearing that up, the knowledge does make it all more entertaining.

@6:49 I'm flattered, but no. Science, as in: presenting a powerpoint slide showing a graph with fabricated numbers to validate 3 months of work on something you find totally worthless but others deem sell-able.

931: Good - informativeBad - not funny and shut up about your situation, Randall, we already knowSummary - The lane metaphor might make great material for a picto-blog, but completely fails as a comic strip.

932: Good - For once, Randy manages to get his point across relatively quickly, if a bit clumsily.Bad - Randy's usual pretentiousness, stupid alt-textSummary - Randall again makes sure that we know how he hates the "uneducated masses". Also, nice way to imply that "computer experts" are not people.

Are we doing that? It doesn't feel like we're doing that. It feels like we're using the fact that he's awful to make fun of him because he's awful, and happen to be doing this while his fiance has cancer.

By continuing a relationship with Randy, Megan is an xkcd-enabler. If there is a God, I expect he would be quite angry with Megan. Now God is not just an angry God but also a just God, so he would respond to the cancer of xkcd with cancer for the xkcd-enabler. Balance is returned.

If that one doesn't please the cynics, how about: Normally, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. But occasionally God gives us false hope that the world is fair by doing something reasonable.

Ves, I know someone on the internet who steadfastly writes 'phone. It irritates me immensely. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that he is 30 and has only held one job in his entire life (and that was a seasonal temp that only lasted 3 months). Fortunately he lives in Britain and has been able to collect unemployment or welfare or something this whole time so he can afford to go to the pub every Thursday for trivia games and to buy CDs for bands nobody cares about!

Something I've noticed: the story of Xkcd is very much like that of cancer.

It starts out as a lifeform, it is normal and healthy. Soon though, it grows more and more rapidly; it becomes deformed and ugly. Treatment begins, and the chemo that is curing Xkcd takes form: this xkcdsucks blog.

However, in spite of our best efforts attacking this malignant and horrifying piece of fuck, it refuses to go away. Even when it seems as if it is finally shrinking, it comes back in a new and appalling form.

Although we will always continue this fight, we understand it very well may be futile. Even if we finally do destroy it, the damage will have been done and its existence will affect us forever.

Don't worry, 7:18. xkcd will buckle under the might of our onslaught before long. The climate on the very message boards are changing. Randall has been forced to remove the link to them. We are gaining ground, people will see the light and xkcd will fall. Then we can rebuild.

There are so many beautiful metaphoric parallels in the comments section for this one. It is this that assures me of one thing: xkcdsucks posters might be mindless, idiotic slobs, but at least we possess the scrapings of a soul, whereas Randy has obviously sold his soul, and therefore any artistic sensibility, for the success of his webcomic, which clearly could not survive on its own merits and must therefore be the work of Satan.

In my life I have found that I can judge people I work with by whether they like cats or xkcd. Put bluntly, a man who either dislikes cats or likes xkcd is an idiot and I would have no hesitation sticking a knife through his heart.

Harsh? No. A man who either dislikes cats or likes xkcd has no soul, thus has no working heart. But at least, bringing back memories of the indelible Stars of David, these soulless zombies would be identifiable by the knife stuck in their chests.

So guys I had kind of a weird experience. I was masturbating and after I was done I decided I was thirsty and grabbed the glass that was in my bedroom and the next thing I knew i was on the floor in the kitchen with broken glass and fallen refrigerator magnets all around me. Is this normal?

A hive-mind can certainly have a soul. Dependent on the perspective, either it is a single soul that is fractured into "cells" that can operate semi-independently, or a merger of several unique souls that then create a monster-blob-soul thing. The latter is probably what xkcdsucks most likely resembles.

From a utilitarian PoV, would it be better if Megan were to die and Randall were to bury himself in a pit of depression, unable to produce another cancerous time-wasting xkcd?

And does Randall read these posts and think, "I'm gonna get through this - I'm not gonna let them get me down! I'll show them!" not realising that the only way he can "show us" is by having the strength to realise that he is wasting his and everybody's life and that he should go back to school and try to make something of himself?

ALTF, I can't work out whether you're trolling or just less intelligent than you think you are. You remind me of a GP I would regularly meat at a Christmas thing. I think medical doctors in general have this ability to recall random facts not quite correctly but are very mediocre at joining the dots (otherwise they'd be statisticians, and I'd still be looking down at them for not being proper mathematicians).

You will read this as Burns-esque but it was not intended so - my field for a' that!

Then let us pray that come it may, (As come it will for a' that,) That Trawls and Brains, o'er a' the earth, Shall bare their Gee(1), an' a' that. For a' that, an' a' that, It's coming yet for a' that, That Cunt to Cunt, the world o'er, Shall sisters be for a' that.

@7:47: "Just" in the sense of "slightly": ALTF clearly isn't stupid but plays slightly above her station as if challenging herself. I thought she'd pick up on the usage since she's usually one to pick the alternative meaning of some word.

The "meat" thing was intentional, sorry. My ex would deliberately write "meat" for "meet" in otherwise eloquent professional discourse to throw people. It was one of her few amusing traits, and great artists steal.

Thinking about it, the whole deliberate-error-insertion-for-attention thing is ALTF's staple. Maybe she reminds me a little too much of her.

I know this is off-topic but I'm bored and contemplating. I want to know whether to do a part time law degree. More importantly, I want to understand what's considered so hard about law - apart from the tedium of learning legislation and case histories, it seems something anyone with a high school comprehension of language should be able to grasp.

OK, this is fucking ridiculous. His fiance was just diagnosed with serious cancer and he's trying to find a way to deal with his feelings. You're seriously criticizing a man's attempt to come to terms with the high likelihood that the woman he loves will die a painful death in the immediate future?Jesus, I can understand you not liking some of the things that he makes, but making fun of a person going through a personal tragedy is just too much, even for you.

(10) "Making fun of a person going through a personal tragedy" - also vague. All people are going through personal tragedies. You don't have to milk the tragedy for profit before you earn a get-out-of-mockery-free card;

Jesus fucking Christ, the dude has close person to him that has cancer and it is weighing on him, so he expresses it in his comics. When someone is worried about a life that is close to them, just let it go. It sucks, and I figured most people know that from experience by now. Have at least a minimal amount of decency out of respect for another human being.

I had sex with a girl with cancer once. She was exhausted from the chemo and fell asleep half way through. I took off the condom and finished off inside her. She figured out what I did the next morning but was so needy she didn't raise a fuss.

@cptnoremac: No-one who graduated a year ago has a real job as a programmer. Even the Oxbridge and the Ivy League grads are outflanked by the thousands with experience at top firms who have just been made redundant.

I don't believe you got a programming job in the last year straight out of college, sorry. I think you're almost certainly still in education and fantasising about where you'd like to be. There are so many people from the best schools with experience who are looking for a job again that you'd have to be some sort of genius to be selected. Either that or your daddy did you a favour.

It actually took me two months of interviewing out of college to find this one. It's a semi-small (about 80 employees) business that designs software for utilities. And no, I'm not related to anyone here.

You mean "Slow, Low And Bangin'" like some fully customised automobiles in the deep south of the US of A?

I don't get it.

I work for Uncle Sam in Government Property Repo.I retrieve from the amputated arms and legs of malicious thieves in S. E. Asia who dare to try and abscond with embedded exploded bits of 45 year old 'American War' Era ordnance they misappropriate from the fields.The peculating cunts!

Milking a government-licenced corporate monopoly, eh? You could have made something fancier than that up... but it's certainly the place you're most likely to find dead wood, so you get 7/10 on the plausibility scale.

Bah, I can't even remember what this argument was about any more. The only people worth trolling are Rob, ALTF and the cuddlefish because they're the only ones who act as if they have reputation to maintain (vicariously, in the last case). I'm in my 30s now and got a programming job straight out of "high school" during the .com boom[tm], so through no work of my own I got to avoid all the shit the current generation has to put up with. Doing something completely different now.

Foop is correct. And the situation really is grim for new graduates in England, no matter how intelligent you are. Unfortunately England is full of homosexual milquetoasts, otherwise we'd see something like what has been happening in Madrid.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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